I Like Ike

Greetings Glampers!

Before we turned the Labor Day corner into Autumn, Laura and I wanted to sneak in one last “Hotter ‘n 100 Degrees” Texoma summer season glamping experience.  Luckily, the weather gods were more than happy to oblige (104 degrees!  Yeesh!) as we discovered a new gem in Northern Texas: Eisenhower State Park.

We wanted to go Glamping over Labor Day Weekend but unfortunately (and very typically), we were late to make reservations.  A mere two weeks out, we lucked out and found one available campsite at Eisenhower Sate Park… or “The Ike” as we began calling it–mostly because we are nerds.  (If we haven’t mentioned it before, Texas Parks and Wildlife has a GREAT online reservation system… awesome!)  We’d never been there before, so we were eager to explore a new location.

What a great choice!  The Ike has a LARGE variety of full, water/electrical, electrical-only, and wilderness campsites.  Nestled against Lake Texoma (a HUGE lake created by the damming of the Red River), Eisenhower provides the perfect venue for hot-weather camping.  The lake offers lovely views, canoe/kayak rental, and a small marina shop.  There are also some great places to fish.  Apparently, if you go fishing off the pier, fishing lines might get caught on the pillars.  I don’t want to talk about it.

Stupid fishing lines… grumblegrumbleharrumph

The swimming area was wonderful!  The beach was large but shallow, mostly cleared of trash (even with Labor Day crowds!), and the water clean (but muddy, as is typical of the average Texas “swimmin’ hole”).

There are even caves to explore! CAVES!

There were also a few quiet places on the water.  After a short hike, we discovered an abandoned boat launch… the perfect place to let the dogs off leash to play in the water.

Okay, let me come clean here… we also may have had an ulterior motive for our trip.  We kinda live in the middle of nowhere, where we lack luxuries like “restaurants” and “stores.”  Thus, Ike’s relative proximity to Dallas gave it bonus points!  (Ike is about an hour north of the “Grapevine” area of Dallas.)  One trip to Ikea and several Swedish Meatballs later, our Airstream quickly became the World’s-Most-Expensive U-Haul trailer.  In short, we were delighted to discover the Ike.  It quickly became our preferred Dallas-area Texas State Park.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with an Alan Wrench and 4,000 individually packaged bunk bed parts.

We’d love to hear your Labor Day Glamping experience this year!  Post in the comments below, and as always, Happy Glamping!

-TJ